The past few weeks / months have been totally chaotic. We have had extended international house guests, travelled interstate, been camping, had two weddings, Easter choc-fest, not been to the gym much, not gotten enough sleep and eaten just about anything I like. Yet this morning I weighed myself and I was 103.6kg.

While I have been conscious of what I am eating I have not been rigorous in trying to avoid or seek out anything in particular – and my weight has stayed stable. And it is 3 kg less than when I started this blog. So I suppose I can safely say that I have lost 3kg – and kept it off. Not fantastic and nothing like the great expectations that I had at the start – but it has been steady and not yo-yo.

Now that things have settled down I need to focus again on losing another 3. Not all that much one might think but every bit counts.

Susy

I have been up and down a lot lately but hovering around 103.4 kg. But life has been throwing some curve balls and proper eating has been hard. A (36 year old) friend of mine who recently died was way over weight and the thought of ending up with his sort of girth is frightening. I took him to the hospital with an asthma attack on top of pneumonia – less than 24 hours later he was dead.

We are all recovering from his demise and taking some serious looks at our lives, habits and goals. We feasted and toasted his journey to Valhalla in fine style – now back to living a long and happy and active life.

Christmas and New Years are over so hopefully the world returns to a more ”normal” pace and activities. This means that I can start to pay attention again to what I am eating and how much exercise I am getting. I have a very bad habit of letting exercise be the first casualty when I am extra busy.

So it has been a few weeks of not really paying close attention to what I am eating, or drinking. Drinking has been one area I think where I have let the side down so to speak. It is rare that I would normally drink either alcohol or soft drinks but over the party season I have had a bit of both. This is an area where it is all too easy to consume excess calories without noticing.

Eating when you are not in charge of what is being prepared is also a challenge. I have eaten more bread and pasta and potatoes (chips) in the past few weeks than I have in a long time. This all adds up.

But the travelling is done. I am home again and though I will be at home looking after the kids for most of January I am hoping I can get into a good eating routine again. Minus all the fast convenient foods that are full of the things I don’t want or need to eat. Though, in my favour, I did manage to take my protein powder with me and ensured that I had at least 15gm of protein within ½ hour of getting up, despite when the official breakfast may have happened, or what it contained.

While travelling I didn’t take my scales with me (that would be just a bit too much dedication), so it was with a bit of trepidation that I stepped on them for the first time after we returned. Only 1.5kg up. Whew. I was kind of expecting more than that given the lack of focus over the holiday period.

So now back to the diet. Back to the exercise. Back to wanting to get below 100kg for the first time since I was pregnant with my eldest (who is now nine).

Susy

I have been so busy in the past few weeks that I really have not had time to do anything – including strictly watch what I have been eating. At this time of year as you can image that has included having to eat at Christmas functions and visits with friends etc.

I was so busy because I took on a rush commission for one of our national institutions. They required stuff before the opening of an exhibition so, foolishly, I said “sure no problem”, and busted my gut to get things finished. So with all the tempting eating locations coupled with the stress of this commission, school ending for the year, Christmas tomorrow … Diet? What diet?

Consequently my weight has fluctuated from 102.9 up to 104.3 and back again. I was 103.0 kg this morning. So the damage has not been that bad. I have unfortunately not done nearly enough exercise, or even my “regular” exercise over this period so I’m not sure if the staying stable in weight has been fat increase with muscle loss or just staying stationery. I’m not sure I want to check with the scales.

We leave on Boxing day for a 10 day road trip holiday to visit family about the country. It will be interesting to see how I pull up after that!

Marry Christmas to you all. Don’t stress about eating all the right, or not eating all the wrong things. Take your cheat day Christmas as totally guilt free and enjoy the holiday season.

Susy